


the long road home

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Future Fic, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker needs to use his words, Post-Endgame, Sugar Daddy, This is just super sappy tbh, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark-centric, World Travel, is it a sugar daddy if they're married?, retired tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He loves this, life that's slow and sweet and carefree, and filled with laughter and sex and Peter's brilliant smile.He doesn't want it to end.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 269
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	the long road home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [new_revolution22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/new_revolution22/gifts).



> This was written for new_revolution22 for Marvel Trumps Hate. They wanted domestic fluff and established relationship and I really hope you love this schmoopy mess of Tony feels!

Two things happen, all at once, and he thinks--

He thinks maybe if it hadn’t happened all at once, maybe it wouldn’t have caused a small crisis, because here’s the simple truth of things: he’s happy. 

The kind of brilliantly unexpected happy he always thought he couldn’t have, the kind of happy he’d never seen, not really, except stolen glimpses of Jarvis and Ana, and those were diamond bright shards of happiness that he never dared even hope for. 

It begins with a celebration and a throwaway comment and Peter’s smile. 

~*~ 

It begins, as almost everything very good and occasionally bad does--with Rhodey. 

“Man, can you believe this shit?” Rhodey murmurs, landing next to him on the couch. Tony adjusts, just a little, and then leans back into him, and Rhodey wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Ten fucking years, Tones.” 

Ten years. 

Since they fought, since they undid the Decimation and brought back half the universe. Ten years since Peter Parker landed in front of him, eternally young and beautiful and  _ alive.  _

“Seems like yesterday,” he says, softly, and Rhodey snorts. 

“Does it? Because I gotta tell ya, genius. We aren’t what we were.” 

“What do you mean?” Tony asks, blinking at him. The others are trickling into the room, and there will be an endless discussion about the upcoming memorial. 

Ten years. 

He knew it’d be a circus. He’d just bitched about it last night, while Peter smirked at him from across the ‘shop, pretty and bruised and stripping out of his suit. 

“I mean, even with Extremis slowing shit down--we’re old, man. Don’t you feel old?” Rhodey asks, and Tony frowns. “I mean--you stand next to Peter and that doesn’t make you feel ancient? I’m not even naked and the kid gives me a complex.” 

Tony laughs, and it feels sharp and brittle, and Rhodey glances down at him, something flickering in his eyes, concern that Tony waves away. 

“Age is just a number, honeybear. You know that.” 

“I think that stops bein’ true when you hit your fifties, old man,” Rhodey teases, and Tony swallows hard. 

~*~ 

The memorial is much like the nine that preceded it, and markedly different from the five before that. 

Before they undid the Decimation, that quiet day in April was marked by somber ceremonies and blood red lilies. 

He read somewhere that they were found growing at Wriggly Field, where twenty thousand were Dusted, and somehow they became the symbol for everything lost, the gardens of stone where names of billions were etched in neat, impossibly long lines were covered in them, the steps of the Compound and the Tower carpeted by red lilies, until the scent of them made him want to  _ choke _ , until the sight alone made him irrationally violent. 

The memorials now--they're different. 

He went to Pride with Peter, their first year dating, and watched him dance with Johnny Storm and Gwen Stacy, lithe and beautiful and vibrantly happy, a riot of color, a defiantly  _ alive _ celebration that dared the world to look away. 

The memorial--it always begins with a speech, the director of SWORD and the CEO of SI and world leaders giving speeches on the rolling, green land where the Avengers Compound once stood. 

Then. 

When the speeches were over, when the ceremony was over, and the directors stepped out of the limelight--War Machine shot through the air, chased by Ironheart and a riot of exploding fireworks, and a party, a global party that rivaled Pride, exploded to life. 

Peter screams, as the fireworks go off and ten years have passed, but that moment in the Compound, when he held his breath and watched Bruce Snap his fingers feels like a heartbeat ago. 

Peter twirls, throws himself into Tony and kisses him, laughing and incandescent, before someone shouts and he's flailing away, as clumsy as he was a decade ago. 

He watches, heart tight and unspeakably happy, as Peter yanks his mask down and webs himself to Ironheart, swinging over the crowd with a wild shriek. 

"He's in a good mood," Pepper says, a smile in her voice and Tony twists to look at her. 

She's dressed in a pale pink summer dress, her hair pinned back and a smile on her lips that's quiet and pleased. Tony wonders, idly, how stressed Harley must be, for Pepper to be this relaxed. "He's earned it, I think." 

"I think we all have," she says, looking out at the giant party. "Are you planning anything for your fifth?" 

He tips his head, and Pepper's lips turn into a knowing smirk. It's been almost thirty years now that she's known him, and fourteen since they called it quits with Morgan a squalling newborn and Tony almost insensible with grief and ash still clinging to his skin. 

She still knows him, though. As well as Rhodey, maybe. Better than anyone but Peter. 

"You do have something planned, don't you?" she says, knowing, and he shrugs, because he does. Of course he does. He's been in love with Peter with so long he doesn't remember what not loving him feels like, has been  _ with _ him for almost eight years, and wearing Peter's ring--because Peter's an asshole and a sneak and popped the question over greasy pizza three days before Tony's planned proposal--for five. 

"Yeah," he says, "But it's just a little thing. He wants to stay home." 

Pepper laughs, and his eyebrows go up. She looks contrite, a little surprised at herself, but the laugh is out there and she doesn’t apologize. “You’ve never done little in your life, Tony. I don’t think you know  _ how. _ ” 

“I can do little, for him,” he protests. 

“Are you sure that’s what he wants?” she asks doubtfully, her gaze on Peter in the crowd. “He’s gotten used to being married to Tony Stark, after all.” 

He frowns. "There's more to being married to me than expensive vacations, Pep." 

"I know that.  _ He _ knows that. But it's been a long few years, and you've made it to a big milestone. Celebrating it is ok. You both deserve that, if it's what you want." 

His frown deepens and she huffs. "Tony, don't over think this. I just--I should probably just keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself. I don't know anything about you and Peter's relationship." 

"Well,  _ that _ is just not true," Tony says, dryly and she laughs. 

He likes that she laughs so much. 

She didn't, for a long time. Neither of them did. She smiled more, after Morgan was born, but even with her lighting up the world, there wasn't much laughter. 

Then Happy opened up his mouth, spilled all those unvoiced feelings, and Tony helped the Avengers unwrite the Decimation, and the world came back to life. 

She laughed a lot, after that. With Happy's ring on her finger, and his arm around her waist, a smile bashful and shy and utterly besotted on his face--she laughed. 

Happiness, he thinks now, looks good on her. Makes the age that clings to both of them fade away. 

"You ever think we'd end up here?" he asks, suddenly, seriously, and Pepper's gaze finds him. Her eyes are soft, and warm and honest. 

"Yeah," she says. "I think we were always going to be happy and together. Maybe not the way we originally planned--but this was always inevitable." 

He smiles, and she leans in, kisses his cheek and straightens. "I should find Happy. He hates all of this." 

"Morgan staying for a while?" he asks, and Pepper nods.

"If you don't mind?" 

"Course not. I told Kamala that she'd be in the crowd, we'll keep an eye on her." 

"Fantastic. I'll see you at the office at the end of the week?" 

Tony nods and she grins, relieved, and turns to find her husband, and he does the same. 

Peter is swinging above the crowd, laughing, Morgan tucked into his arm, the crowd screaming and joyful and alive below them. He watches, hands tucked into his pockets and a tiny part of him--a part he hates to give voice and can't help but hear whispering, wonders if Pepper was right. 

He taps his glasses and FRIDAY murmurs in his ear. "Baby girl, find a few places in the tropics that Peter might like, would you?" 

"Sure thing, boss," she says and he smiles. 

~*~

They've been together for years now--and even before they were together, there were the years of teaching Peter, of grooming him to take over R&D, to be the best mind SI could offer. They've been together long enough that it's not new, the whole plane, the obscene wealth that sometimes--rarely, but  _ sometimes _ \--he still feels a bit embarrassed by. 

Peter likes ramen and boxed mac & cheese, likes rainy afternoons in used bookstores and thrift stores full of discarded tech. He likes matinee movie showings, still, of movies he calls classics and Tony remembers watching in his shitty apartment with Rhodey when they were endlessly young and just as fucking stupid. 

He likes simple things, a grounded soul raised by a blue collar uncle and a practical aunt. 

And he married one of the richest men on earth. 

There was...an adjustment. 

Still. Peter ambles onto the private jet with earbuds stuffed in his ear, thumbs flying over the screen of a prototype that Tony is pretty sure cost more than a year at MIT, and takes a glass of champagne with a distracted smile at the pretty flight attendant, sprawling into the chair with lazy indolence. 

Spoiled little prince, Tony thinks fondly, and settles next to him, hands up while Peter squirms to get comfortable, and yawns into Tony's thigh. His champagne dangles precariously from loose fingers."You wanna tell me what we're doing?" he asks, lazily, and Tony pets his hair back, drops a kiss there and smiles when Peter blinks up at him, all bright eyes and wide smiles. 

"Not a chance in hell, sweetheart." 

~*~ 

The thing about Nambia is that it's beautiful. Peter leans over the rail of the yacht taking them along the coast, the water slicing blue and white frothed, stark against the red sand dunes rising from the coast. He's in low slung shorts and an open shirt, his hair curling around his ears, shades blocking his eyes, and he looks like the prince Tony so often calls him. Wealthy, impossibly young, utterly beautiful. 

Why the hell had a pretty thing like this gorgeous boy ever hitched himself to Tony? 

He watches Peter grin as the deckhand--a lean blonde with flirty smile and abs for fucking  _ days _ \--approaches, offering up a beer and a pair of binoculars, leaning close to point at something on shore, and Tony feels his stomach twinge. 

There's a hand on Peter's back, a hand that isn't his and it shouldn't bother him--but it does. 

Then Peter twists, and he's grinning, bright and happy and laughing, waving Tony closer, and he's helpless but to grin and move to Peter's side, press a kiss to his cheek as the hot ocean wind buffet them and the annoyingly pretty deckhand moves away. 

"You got a tent," Peter accuses, his voice laced with laughter and Tony grins, shrugging. "Yeah, but sweetheart--you gotta see inside." 

~*~ 

Peter loves it. 

He knew Peter would, but the shocked awe on his face--so familiar when he was young and impressionable, before he stepped fully into the space at Tony's side, so rare _now_ , when life has become familiar--is reassuring and validating both. Tony tucks his hands into his pockets, watching his husband flit through the tent with glee, laughter bubbling up bright and smiles against the smug satisfaction that he did this right. 

"Can we go swimming?" Peter asks, finally twisting to look at him with wide eyes, and Tony makes a face. "Not here, darling. They have sharks. But I think you'll like the safari." 

The grin he gets rewarded with is _incandescent_. 

The kiss and the blow job aren't half bad, either. 

~*~ 

Peter doesn't even grumble, when Tony nudges him from bed with thick dark coffee and fresh fruit, sticky kisses and a slap on the ass that's hard enough even Peter can feel it. 

"Move it, Spidey. There's lions out there waiting for us." 

~*~ 

He watches the grass and their safari guide, and Tony should probably be listening too, watching for lions or gazelle or whatever the fuck they're supposed to be seeing--but he's done this before, back when he was nine--Aunt Peggy and Jarvis took him on a world tour while his mother was sick. 

It took him until he was ten to realize sick meant rehab. 

He remembers the lions, the awe of seeing elephants in the wild. He remembers seeing penguins near Cape Town and thinking his father was probably seeing the same thing, digging for Cap in the ice. 

He remembers all of this, the wild savage beauty of this land, the opulence of the cities that Aunt Peggy took him to, where she fed him street food and laughed when he fell asleep with greasy fingers and lips burning. 

He doesn't need to see it again, is the thing. 

So he doesn't watch and he doesn't care, because all he can see, all he _wants_ to see, is Peter, bright and beautiful and grinning at him, like Tony is everything he's ever wanted. 

Sometimes, he even believes that's true. 

~*~ 

"You should have worn sunscreen," Peter murmurs. Beyond the walls of their tent, the deckhands are tending the fire and talking, low and laughter. BUt here in the dark cocoon, there's only flickering firelight and Peter's hands on his sunburnt skin aloe cool against the heat, and the familiar weight of his body pressed against Tony's ass. 

He wiggles, and Peter slaps his leg, lightly, until Tony goes still and he returns to gently rubbing aloe into the hot skin. 

"Thank you," he says, softly, eventually, "for today. For this trip. I--it's too much." 

"Not for you," Tony mumbles into his pillow, the scent of the fire and the aloe and Peter's sweaty skin all twisting together, intoxicating and perfect. "I'd give you the whole fuckin' world, sweetheart, if you'd just let me." 

Peter doesn't answer, not with words. Just smooths gentle fingers over red skin, and presses a kiss to the nape of his neck, his weight grounding and warm and soothing Tony to sleep. 

~*~

Wakanda isn't a choice so much as an eventuality. Peter and Shuri have been close since the final battle, when he stood on the bloody field and she wobbled to his side and said softly, "I've heard about you from my brother." 

There was, Tony knew, a bond particular to being young and brilliant and superheros, to being the people the world considered children, even as they saved that same world. 

Anytime they visited the African continent, a trip to Wakanda was expected. 

And when the Queen expected something, even Tony was loath to disappoint. He might be the second richest man on earth, but Shuri was a  _ queen _ . 

Peter vanishes with her after they land, and Tony is escorted by a Dora to the rooms Shuri keeps ready for them. She looks young, younger than Peter had been, when they first met, and he knows that can't possibly be true--Shuri would never allow that. Okoye would never allow it--but it doesn't stop the pang of grief and loneliness that slips through him. 

"Stark," Okoye says, striding up as the Dora leads him through the palace. She's smiling, and there are wrinkles, fine and thin, around her lips, but she walks tall and straight and she guards her Queen still. 

Shuri is the third Black Panther and ruler that Okoye has stood as General to. 

He wonders if she feels as old as he does, when she stands with her Queen. 

"It is good to see you, my friend. Has your husband found my queen?" 

Tony smiles, nods. "You know how those two can be, when they haven't seen each other recently." 

"I put one of Carol's elixirs in your room," Okoye says, grinning. "They still drink like Peter is in college." 

"You, sweetheart, are a goddess," Tony says, sincere and kisses her cheeks as he leads the way into his rooms. 

~*~ 

Sometimes, when they meet in formal situations--the UN and the Council, when Shuri sits regal and small in her throne--he can still see T'challa. See the echo of the man who introduced the world to Wakanda, who reached out a hand to him after everything went wrong in Siberia, who kept Steve safe when the Avengers shattered. 

He sees him, when Tony leans into Shuri's space, and the vibranium claws at her throat gleam, a reminder of who and what she is. 

He sees him, when Okoye lifts a glass as the evening begins and says, grief bright in her eyes, "To the King." 

Shuri never took a consort, when she took the throne. 

"I have a nephew," she says, the one time Peter brings it up, when she's sitting in an oversized sweater and tights on their couch in New York. "My brother had a child--he lives--he's safe." She smiles and it's tight and ghastly and Tony thinks about the time in his early twenties, when Rhodey was shot in a training exercise, when Tony thought he might die, and the grief that came from that. 

How different is it, to lose him entirely? To lose your brother? 

He swallows the liquor, a Wakandan made thing that tastes like spice and fire and smooth honey, and shoves his grief down. 

~*~ 

He's invited into the Queen workshop on their second day in Wakanda, when his head pounds from too much to drink, and his stomach turns queasy from Okoye's morning remedies. 

Peter and Shuri are bent over her suit, their voices bright and eager, spilling over each other and he sits back, watching them, and Peter grins at him, when he plays kimono beads over his fingers, clicking pleasantly. 

"You don't have anything to say?" he teases, and Tony shrugs.

"You two put my suits to shame years ago, sweetheart. I'm content to let you lead the new world order." 

"What of the new recruits?" Shuri asks, not looking away from the tracker she and Peter are embedding into her suit. "Rhodey said that Kamala is ready to be sent on missions." 

"She's not bad--Carol's been training her while she's been in New York. Reed and his team are playing well with the Avengers--it's not bad." 

"We haven't had any real reason to test our strength," Peter says, carefully not looking at Tony. "Not anything like--" 

"No," Shuri murmurs. "And let us pray that holds true, hmm?" 

She straightens and grins, sharp and feral, the kind of smile that makes Tony groan because he's seen them spar, the little queen and his spider. 

"Don't break him," he begs and Shuri laughs, bright and loud and for a moment, the shadows of the dead don't linger in the corners of this room. 

~*~ 

Peter crawls into bed late that night, when he's lingering near the edge of sleep, and it's the weight of Peter's hands on his hips, and the warm press of his lips on his throat, that tug him from the edges of sleep, pull him close to the cusp of waking. 

"I love you," he murmurs, and Tony shivers in his arms, arches up for the kiss that Peter is never hesitant to give. "I love you so much," he breathes, and he tastes like fire and honey and Tony wants, desperately, to know what is in the depths of Peter's voice, what is making grief crack through him. 

Instead, Peter's hands shift, begging and hard and teasing, and Tony groans into him, and rolls him into the sheets, kisses him harder as he keens and rocks against the thigh pressed between his legs. Swallows his cock while Peter's fingers grip his hair and his hips rock up, fucking his lips, until he's panting and whining and begging to be fucked. 

Tony sinks into him, fucks him hard and fast, faster than he would normally, but there's grief still in the desperate way that Peter clings to him, and there's honey and fire on his tongue and the stars are bright and sad, in this kingdom haunted by a long dead king and a queen that never stopped mourning. 

He fucks Peter in paradise, and Peter clings to him, smears tears into his shoulder and into his throat and he whispers, "I'm never letting you go, darling." 

It's a vow, and a promise and a prayer. 

~*~

They land in Germany when the sun is still a sliver of grey on the horizon, when the morning is promising but still just that. 

They land in the grey in between, when the world lingers between waking and sleeping and Tony rouses Peter with a hand in his hair, a kiss on his cheek, a soft, "We're here, sweetheart." 

Peter curls into his arms, tucked against his side, almost sleeping as they walk through the quiet hanger, as Tony tucks him into the back of a limo, and slips in after him. 

It's been so long, since the first time he brought Peter to Europe. Since he disappeared as soon as the quinnjet touched down, desperate to find Rhodey and to contain a situation that was rapidly spinning out of his control. 

He left Peter alone, in an expensive hotel with his bodyguard for company, and he hasn't forgiven himself for that, not really. 

Not when it was Peter's first trip to Europe, and it ended bloody and  _ bad _ . 

He'd still be in a medically induced coma, when Peter took his second trip to Europe, fighting desperately to keep his life  _ normal _ , clinging to dreams of a girl that faded into dust on Titan. 

It went even worse than the first trip did, a mess of Beck's manipulation and Peter's grief and fear. 

He wonders sometimes, what would have happened if they had told Peter that Tony was recovering. If they hadn't told him the same thing that they told the rest of the world. If they hadn’t waited until he was home, and Happy spilled the truth and dragged Peter to his bedside where Morgan was waiting. 

It was different--telling the world that Iron man was dead was very different than letting the kid he'd torn the universe apart for believe the same damn lie. 

Sometimes he thinks that decision, the one that Pepper made while he'd been dying and Extremis was the only miracle that might be able to save him--he thinks that  _ that _ was the tipping point, the straw that broke the camel's back, even if it would be another year before either of them ever acknowledged it. 

He breathes, inhales the scent of Peter's hair in his nose, the sweat of it and the recycled air of the plane, and the scent of vanilla that is all Peter. 

It was a long time ago. Ten years gone, and this--this is their new chance. His chance to rewrite all the bad memories, to show Peter Europe as it's meant to be seen--in all its glory, history and tragedy and beauty all wrapped up together. 

Peter snores against his shoulder and Tony pets his hair back as the sun rises and the grey in between time that he hates, that never fails to remind him of the long empty years when Peter was dead and ash still clung to his fingers bleeds away in the rising light and the steady pressure of the man sleeping in his arms. 

~*~

"Let's spend the whole day here," Peter murmurs, that first night, when they've both slept and they're curled in bed, and Tony is desperate for coffee and food, and Peter is a warm line of heat and strength curled around him.

"Doing nothing?" Tony says, skeptical. Peter never does well with nothing to do.

His husband smirks, and long fingers wrap around his cock. "I wouldn't call it  _ nothing _ ," he says, and for a while, Tony loses track of the burning urge to find coffee, and the hunger gnawing at his belly, and even the presents waiting in the outer rooms of their suite. 

Peter has always been exceptional at getting Tony to forget everything around him. 

~*~ 

They don't get this, often, is the thing. 

They travel a lot, both of them, still. Even semi-retired and out of the superhero gig and playing the role of house husband, Tony is still someone the entire world wants to hear from--especially when he stepped out of the shadows Pepper had shrouded him in and the world stopped grieving a man who never truly died. He travels with Peter for SI meetings around the globe, for tech conferences where he stands up and rambles about the future that he's always been best at seeing, while the audience watches in rapture. 

They do travel, is the thing. Sometimes, they pack Morgan up and travel with her, no conferences, no SI, just their little family and the whole wide world as their damn oyster. 

But  _ this _ \--Peter and Tony alone, the world and all its many obligations far away--this is rare. 

He likes it, though. Likes the way that they can spend long lazy hours in bed, trading kisses and dozing against each other, reading and laughing and  _ existing _ . 

He likes that Peter wanders with him through the city, eyes wide and fascinated as they trace over the history and the places they've seen before, but never quite like this. 

He likes the way that Peter goes bright and soft, when he opens the camera, something he found in an antique store that Pepper had dragged him into, last time they were out for lunch. It's old and it uses film and it offends every single one of Tony's sensibilities--but it's the kind of vintage thing that Peter adores, and when he saw it, all he could think is how Peter would love it. 

He does, and the smile that he flashes, bright and pleased and pretty, is worth all the headache of putting the damn back into working order. 

There's a moment, when they're wandering through the Brandenburg Gate that Peter smiles, and curls against him, his hands free while Tony's laced around his boy's hips, and he leaned back, hair floppy and messy and Tony had pressed a kiss to his temple and Peter was laughing, incandescent and beautiful in his arms, and snapped the picture, just like that, all quick and fleeting, before he kissed the edge of Tony's lips and squeezed his hand and hauled him along to find chocolates to send home for Morgan. 

~*~

They spend two weeks in Europe, bouncing around to wherever happens to take their fancy. 

They spend four wine soaked sex filled days in Spain, in his mother's ancestral home and watching Peter there, sun-soaked and fucked out, makes him ache. "Mama would have loved you," he murmurs, kissing Peter and his boy smiled against his lips, a gentle smile of understanding because they're orphans, the both of them, and no one but another orphan understands that kind of unending grief. 

They go to England, to the rainy countryside of Kent where there sits a house, and Peter leans into Tony when he nods at it. "I bought this for Jarvis, after Ana got sick."

"Did they like it?" Peter asks, curious. There are vines and roses climbing over the brick cottage, and he can almost feel the love of the people who should be inside. 

"I dunno," Tony says, "They refused to leave me, so they never lived here." 

Peter makes a noise, soft and hurt and turns in his arms, pressing close and kissing him, soothing little presses against his cheek and jaw and when Tony shudders and leans into him, his heart beating too hard, Peter holds him close and his hand soothes over his back, and his voice is a warm murmur of reassurance in his ear. 

There are happier places, too. Peter gets blackout drunk in Glasgow. They end up in a club in Amsterdam, with Peter grinding against him in the dark to a dirty beat and Tony had gripped his hips and held on tight, and come down his boy's throat in an alley as they stumbled back to their hotel, just like when they first started dating and Peter had been young and voracious for him. 

There's the weekend in Crete where Peter wore white linen and dark bruises and nothing more. There's Rome, with its food and it's beauty and it's history, and the ocean roads of Norway and everywhere they go, Peter is by his side, brilliantly beautiful and transcendentally happy, and Tony has seen the world over a dozen times, has been in dirty clubs and small bars and the sandy beaches of Crete. There was once a private mass held in the Vatican because he knew it would impress Pepper. 

But it's different, being here with Peter, seeing the world with Peter, where nothing can touch them or their happiness, where the problems of the superhero world and the weight of SI are distant. 

He likes it, likes the only problem of the day being where they should go and if he should wake Peter with a blow job or a slow fuck. 

Peter seems partial to the blow job, and he does like making Peter moan so pretty in the morning light, when he's soft and warm and sleepy. 

He loves this, life that's slow and sweet and carefree, and filled with laughter and sex and Peter's brilliant smile. 

He doesn't want it to end.

~*~ 

They go to Russia, eventually, to a giant manor in the countryside that Steve bought for Bucky and Sam back in the nineties, when he was living a life with Peggy and growing old without them. It was an unhappy reminder that sat empty more often then not, and it feels haunted, a little, as Tony leads Peter into it. 

There are photos in the hall, from Sam and Bucky’s wedding a few years ago, and Peter touches it, the smiling face of Bucky Barnes while Tony watches. 

Peter is laughing at his side, dressed in a slim fitted suit as his best man, smile wide and teasing and Bucky's laughing, hand gleaming on Peter's shoulder. 

Of all the things that he'd woken up to that startled him, the strange and abiding friendship between Peter and Bucky was one of the strangest. 

But then, maybe it wasn't that odd. Not when Peter was struggling with coming back from the dead, with a family moved on without him and Beck playing with his mind, and Tony's months long coma, not when Bucky was dealing with Steve's return to the past, and a life that had slipped by him again. 

"We should call Morgan," Peter says, touching the photo gently and then twisting to smile at Tony. "I miss her." 

He nods, and follows his husband deeper into the manor. 

~*~ 

Morgan and Peter chatter for over an hour, until Tony is demanded and Pepper reminds them that there's a significant time zone difference and shooed her daughter to bed. "Stop worrying, Peter," she says, smiling brightly through the Starkphone. "She's having the time of her life. Her Uncle Harley took her sailing last weekend." 

Peter smiles, but it's weak, a little pinched around the eyes, and Tony keeps watching him, when they've hung up and the boy retreats to the bathroom, lounging in a giant tub overflowing with hot water and bubbles. 

He's pensive, quiet and withdrawn, and there's something tired and guilty in his gaze when he smiles at Tony. 

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Tony asks, and Peter shakes his head, reaches for him, his hand dripping bubbles and water and there's something hopefully and pleading in his gaze. 

Tony has never been good at telling Peter no. He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the tub, the outline of Peter's body a murky shadow in the bubbles and water, and his lips are warm and soft, when Tony kisses him, when he licks his way into Peter's mouth and makes him gasp. 

They make a mess, water and bubbles splashing across the floor when Peter pulls him, still fully clothed, into the water, and more spilling over when Peter thrashes in Tony's grip, his voice sharp and breaking. 

They make a mess, and Tony watches his husband, beautiful in his pleasure, a smile on his lips and his eyes closed and the shadows are gone, when Tony cradles him against his chest, and runs his fingers through wet curls and Peter tips his head back against Tony's shoulder. 

There's a question on his lips, begging to be asked--but he bites it back and kisses Peter's shoulder and holds him close. 

~*~ 

They go to China, to the Great Wall with its many steps and it's endless stretch. 

Peter grins and calls him an old man, and he looks happier here than he has since they were in that dirty club in Amsterdam. They spent a few days here, when they were on their honeymoon, and he's never quite forgotten it--couldn't, when his favorite picture of them together was taken here, his arms around Peter as they stared off the wall, and someone snapped the picture unaware. He's tipped down, a smile he'd be terrified of on his lips, soft and sweet, and Peter is craned back, his head on Tony's shoulders, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his face soft and happy. 

It had made headlines the world over, Ironman in the open and so in love it was impossible to deny, and it broke the news--the ring glinting on Peter's hand made it undeniable--that Tony Stark had finally married. 

Pepper released their wedding photos two days later, while Peter and Tony drank sake in a private retreat in Japan, but that--that picture of them had been how the world found out that  _ Peter _ was  _ his _ . 

~*~ 

"Peter" he murmurs, and Peter tips his head to the side, his gaze finding Tony, unerring. There's something melancholy about him, still, and it's making worry bubble under his skin, itchy and demanding. Even the giant pandas hadn't been enough to chase away the lingering unhappiness. 

"Are you happy, my love?" he asks, and Peter smiles, and nods. 

It doesn't reach his eyes, not all the way, and it makes something twist in Tony's gut. 

"Can we call Morgan?" Peter asks, instead of explaining what he's thinking, where his mind is wandering, and Tony nods, helpless. 

~*~ 

They're packing, the news playing quietly because after all these years being superheroes, retired or otherwise, it was a habit to keep a finger on the pulse of the world. 

Peter goes still as he's packing his boxers and his gaze flicks to the TV, eyes narrow and bright. 

Sam is brilliant, red and black and blue streaking across the sky, and there's a small army of Doombots in Central Park. 

Peter makes a noise, small and unhappy and Tony reaches for him, gathers him close as they watch the battle rage, and the packing is quietly forgotten. 

~*~ 

Later, Peter sits in his lap on their jet. Sam and the new Avengers had put down the Doombots with no casualties and very little property damage. Bucky hadn't even made an appearance on the scene, a sure sign that there was nothing to worry about--Bucky never hesitated to jump into the fray if he worried about Sam. 

It doesn't stop Peter’s worry, and Tony damn well knows it. 

"Do you want to go back?" he asks, and Peter shifts in his lap, a sigh slipping free. 

He's quiet long enough, still for long enough, that Tony thinks he's fallen asleep, when he asks. "Have you ever wished you didn't retire?" 

"Sometimes," Tony answers promptly and Peter blinks up at him in shock. Tony shrugs, smiles a tiny little thing. "It's hard to watch you out there, or Rhodey, and know I could be protecting you--but I'm retired." 

"What keeps you from putting on the suit?" 

Tony smiles, a gentle little thing, and kisses him and Peter softens. "Oh." 

~*~ 

He smiles more in Australia. The melancholy that's been clinging to him since they reached Russia fades away, burned off by the warm sun, by the energy of Sydney. 

They spend one night dressed to the nines, at the opera house and on the town, the kind of life they live every day in New York, and Peter's eyes never quite leave him. It's been a decade and more since they met, Peter's seen him in black suits and tuxes, in jeans and a beat up tank-top and a hundred versions of the armor and in nothing at all, but he always gets like this when Tony puts in a little effort, slips into the three piece suit he wears as easy as breathing and turns up the charm.

When they return to his penthouse, Peter's hands are frantic and hungry, and he wrings an orgasm out of his husband with his mouth before Peter spends two hours edging the hell outta him, until Tony is a wordless mess of sensation on their bed, his world narrowed down to Peter's cock filling him up and the bite of the silk ties ties holding him down. 

~*~

He surfs. 

Peter learned the first summer they spent together in Malibu, after Peter's freshman year at MIT, when Tony was still hiding from the world, when they gathered up Morgan and May and spent a sun soaked three months just existing, and they hadn't been together, then--Peter was nursing a broken heart when MJ left him for social justice or the Peace Corps or both--but they were happy and Peter had dragged Morgan into the waves, until both were so at home in the water, Tony wasn't sure he'd ever get them back to the East coast. 

He never really lost his love for it, and he doesn't get to do it enough, so it's not surprising or even distressing to find the space in their bed cool and empty, to wander out onto the private beach their villa back into, and find Peter, beautiful in the early morning sun, face bright and suit low on his hips, agile and lovely, in the water, the way he is when he's got the suit on and flies through Queens on silly string and adrenaline. 

He watches for a long time, until the sun is bright and high and Peter is trudging up the beach, sand sticking to his feet and his calves, and his smile is sweet and shy, and Tony catches his hand, presses a salty kiss to the skin and murmurs, "You should get to do that more." 

Peter grins, shrugs. "We kinda keep busy, Tony." 

It's sitting on the tip of his tongue--the offer to change that. To walk away from New York and the superheroes, away from SI and their responsibilities and from the way Peter is looking at him, he  _ knows _ it's there. The urge. 

He swallows the words back and smiles as Peter steals his coffee. "What do you want to do today?" 

~*~ 

Pepper calls while they're in Thailand, while Peter is laughing and watching the elephants. He stares at the phone buzzing in his hand, the smiling face of his ex and the wife of his child, and he wants, for just a moment, to throw the phone away, to gather Peter close and run into the jungle, to live away from the world and all it's demands. 

"Tony," Peter says, glancing at the phone and then at him, his expression bright and curious. "What--are you going to answer?" 

He nods, and swallows hard around his smile and answers the phone to find out what the world wants. 

~*~ 

"Can we see penguins?" Peter asks, later that night. His mouth is red and shiny and Tony won't kiss him because he's been eating street meat and it's spicy enough to peel paint but he's grinning and there's sugar and chili on his fingers, and happiness in his eyes, a sheen of sweat on his skin. 

"Sure," Tony says, agreeably because he can't imagine telling Peter no about anything, not not now a decade ago, not sure he'll ever be able to do that. 

Peter smiles and blows him a kiss and sprawls in their bed, half naked and beautiful and happy. 

~*~ 

He doesn't quite take them to Antarctica, but there's a temptation. Instead, they go to the tip of South America and they stand there, on the edge of the world. Peter spends hours watching the hopper penguins and the water, and the easy glee from Australia and Thailand are sliding away with the crashing waves, something older and tired slipping into its place, a thing he recognizes because it's stared at him over coffee and dinner and in their bed a thousand times in their marriage, and it makes his breath catch. 

Sometimes--when Peter is laughing among silly birds, when he's lounging sticky and greedy and prince-like, when he's crusted in salt and sand a wet hair falling into his eyes--it's easy to see that boy he fell in love with a lifetime ago, the boy who he rewrote the universe and almost died for. 

He loves that boy, more than life itself. He'd have died, happily if he knew that Peter was alive. 

Peter never allowed that though--he and Pepper fought and bargained and stole him back from the edge of nothing, shoved Extremis in his veins and nanotech into his blood and dragged him back. 

It changed him. 

Tony doesn't think about it often, because Peter never talks about it, but he can see it, now, after weeks of laughter and happiness, of the world through the eyes of his young husband, and now--now his husband is staring at him again, and he's ancient and he's beautiful and he looks so damn tired, that it makes Tony _ache_. 

He stands and pulls Peter close, presses a kiss to his lips and Peter leans into him, shameless in taking exactly what he wants and needs from Tony. 

"I'm tired," he murmurs and Tony hum, a soft acknowledgement, and steers him away from the penguins and the wild water and back toward the safety of their quiet hotel rooms. 

~*~ 

Peter isn’t in bed, when he wakes up. 

Tony stares at the empty space next to him, where his husband should be, where his husband has been for the past two months while the toured the world, the place where Peter isn’t and his heart sinks. He doesn't move, not for a long time, listening to the sound of the city moving beyond their open window, doesn't move until there are light feet landing on the balcony, and the distinct sound of webshooters. Then he straightens up in bed, and Peter pauses. 

He's still the lithe beautiful boy that Tony fell in love with, his body hardened by time and years of wearing the suit, but still flexible in a way so many of the others aren't. 

He's still more at home in red and blue and a covered face than he has been anywhere but naked in Tony's bed. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, before blood plops, wet and loud, on the floor and Tony says, "I'll get the kit." 

~*~ 

Peter is quiet, while Tony patches him up. He doesn't need it--the knife scored along his ribs, so shallow it's healing already, but it's soothing and familiar, to do this, to put him back together while Peter stares at him with wide eyes and a flushed face, and it's familiar too, to wipe his hands on his pants when he's done, and say, softly, "What do you want?" 

The flinch--that's not familiar. That makes his stomach drop, makes his hands spasm against his thighs, and Peter looks away, licking his lips and hiding from him, and it's terrifying, more terrifying event than waking up to an empty bed and an open window, because that's--that's been familiar since before they were dating, and Tony knows that Peter will always come home to him. 

Peter swallows hard and looks back at him, and his lips are red and pouting, and his eyes are bright when he says, softly, "Take me to bed?" 

It's not what Tony was asking, and it's not exactly what Peter needs, but it's enough, for now, and he nods, because taking Peter apart, slow and thorough, while his boy pants and writhes across the sheets, while he comes untouched and comes in Tony's mouth, and comes around his cock, an endless orgasm that leaves him shaking, that has always been easy and he has always been willing to lose himself in that, in the slow drugging kisses and the syrup sweet sex that is where they are closer to each other than two people _can_ be, _should_ be. 

And later, when Peter is sticky and spent and they are collapsed in the filthy sheets, and the sun is beginning to lighten the sky beyond their still open balcony, Tony lays awake while Peter curls sleepy and sated and content in his arms. 

He lies awake while his boy sleeps and he tries very hard not to be afraid of what he doesn't know. 

Peter has been quietly unhappy for weeks, since Russia and maybe even before that, and he has dangled the world in front of him, but Peter is still quiet and distant and distracted. 

And Tony has no idea how to fix it. 

~*~ 

He calls Rhodey. 

Because Rhodey is his best friend and his best friend, and his guiding star, even more than Peter is, if only because Rhodey has been his brother since before Peter was born. 

"How's the trip?" Rhodey asks, and Tony can hear the sound of training in the background, Riri's thrusters sounding just a little bit off. He frowns. "Tones?" Rhodey calls, and it jerks him back to the reason for the call. 

"He isn't happy," he says and Rhodey's silent for a long moment. The noise from the Avengers grows dim and distant and then there's only silence. 

"Tell me," Rhodey says, gently. 

He does. About Russia and Australia, about Thailand and Japan, about the coast and the distance in Peter's eyes and the night in the suit. "I feel like he should be closer to me than he ever has been--but he feels a million miles away," he whispers. 

"Have you asked him why?" Rhodey asks, and Tony makes a quiet discontent noise in his throat. 

Because what if he asks, and it's more than he can fix. What if it's  _ everything _ . What if it's their whole damn life, and Tony pulls it all down around them? 

"You gotta talk to him, man," Rhodey says, gentle. "You two work better than anyone in the world--but if you don't talk to him, if you get stuck in your head, what happens." 

"I’ll ruin it," he whispers. 

"You don't trust being happy," Rhodey says, gentle. "You never have. Talk to him. Don't borrow trouble--lord knows we got enough of it without you creating your own." 

He takes a deep breath and behind him, Peter calls his name from their bed.

~*~ 

Peter is subdued over breakfast, his gaze anxious and a little bit guilty, and Tony waits, patient, because Peter has always needed to come to him on his own time and terms. "I'm sorry," he blurts out, eventually, while Tony is nibbling on a blueberry. "I just--I heard something. I needed to help." 

Tony is quiet for a moment, and then, "Are you happy, sweetheart?" 

Something flickers, brief, so brief--but there--in his eyes, and Peter's smile is tight and not quite real, even if his words are ringing with sincerity. "Yeah, Tony. I'm really happy."

He opens his mouth, to push, to demand--

"Where are we going next?" Peter asks, and bites into a strawberry and Tony---

Tony lets it go.

~*~ 

Up next is a cruise on Tony's yacht. It's an obscene thing with a full galley and luxurious bedroom, a neutral pleasure barge that Pepper had once hated, until he started wining and dining clients on it and then suddenly she was it's biggest fan. 

He tucks Peter into it in Portland, with a staff of five all of whom have orders to leave them alone, and they sail north. 

The thing is that he does know his husband, knows that Peter is unhappy with something, even if he isn't quite ready to talk about it, and there's a part of him that wants this, wants them trapped together on a boat with no outside distractions beyond the beauty of Canada and Alaska slipping past their deck and balcony, nothing to draw Peter away from him because as lovely as all that nature is--they are both of them, city boys and scientists, and endless acres of green trees and slow melting ice only hold so much appeal. 

There's only so much sex, too. 

Peter is reading to him-- _ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe _ . It's a habit he picked up when Morgan was still little, when Peter was trying to figure out how exactly he fit into her world and if he was welcome in it. 

He was. She'd always adored Peter, even before she knew him--she'd heard enough about him from Tony that she'd been half in love before he stepped onto that field in New York and then he'd sat at Tony's bedside, reading to her and Tony both, and the love had deepened, blossomed into something that wasn't just hero worship and puppy love, something that was genuine and deep and meaningful. 

"She liked this one," he says, interrupting Peter who blinks at him owlishly before a delicate flush crawls up his cheeks and Peter nods. Lets the book fall closed and smiles a little bit self-consciously. 

"I think that's why I read it. Makes me miss her less." 

Tony blinks at him. 

Peter isn't looking at him, is staring at the book, something deep and sad and complicated in his eyes that he won't let Tony see. 

And maybe that's why. 

"I would still let you see her," he blurts out, and Peter frowns. Tips his head up to look at Tony, and there's a furrow between his eyebrows, his mouth turned into a frown that is a little bit confused and a lot sad. 

"What are you talking about?" he asks, and Tony gestures. It's kind of flailing, but he likes to think it's mostly just a gesture meant to take in Peter and Narnia and  _ everything _ , which might be why it's so broad and helpless and why his chest aches when he says, "You aren't happy, Pete." 

Peter blinks, and his mouth opens and now--now that he's started he doesn't know how to stop, and he's rushing on before Peter can lie, before he can deny it because it's the truth. "You've been miserable since Russia. You keep telling me your fine--but you aren't happy here, with me." 

He hesitates, but Peter's not trying to interrupt him anymore, is just *staring, and maybe he needs to just rip the bandaid off, say it. 

"If---I wouldn't keep her from you, if we got a divorce. I'd let you see her, as much as either of you wanted." 

Peter is staring, and he's pale and trembling and Tony wants to reach out, wants to pull him close and kiss away the tremble of his lips. 

He doesn't. He nods, to himself more than anything, and then pushes away from the table and walks away. 

~*~ 

Peter doesn't come after Tony. He goes to their cabin, and thinks very hard about breaking open the whiskey in the galley, but he stopped drinking alone, drinking to get drunk, round about the time Peter dissolved into ash on his fingers. 

He didn't want to throw away almost fifteen years of sobriety because his husband didn't chase after him. 

They are, after all, still trapped on a boat together, and there is the fact that Peter hasn't made a habit of chasing after him for a long time and it'd be beneath him, to change that now. 

It still stings, sitting on the little balcony watching trees and ice floes floating past and knowing that upstairs, Peter is turning over that fucking word. 

He doesn't believe it--not truly. Peter is a lot of things, but he's never been a quitter and he's not happy right this second, but he's been happy, for so long. Tony can still fix this, whatever it is that he broke--he can make Peter happy again. 

"Friday, show me the wedding," he says softly, and she does, displays the pictures from that day five years ago. It was in the fall, the leaves golden and red and beautiful, and they'd had the ceremony, small and intimate, at the lake house. 

Peter wore white and a golden tie, and Tony wore a deep blue and scarlet. 

May had cried and Morgan had shrieked, half happy half scandalized, when Tony kissed Peter, and the ring on his finger was heavy and grounding and his boy,  _ his _ boy was in his arms, alive and vibrant and  _ his _ forever. 

They fucked in the lab, while Pepper rallied the caters and Bucky threw Morgan, all tulle and curls, into the air, and Peter stumbled out on colt clumsy legs, while Tony strolled after him, a smug smile fixed firmly in place. 

The pictures pause, and he stares at the smile on Morgan's face, squished next to Peter's, and the way they both lean back into Tony's arms, and his heart squeezes. 

He has no idea what he'll do, if Peter wants to leave. 

~*~

He hears it before he hears Peter. The sound of an engine overhead, the familiar whine of the quinnjet, and then Peter is behind him. "Pack up," he says, and Tony stares at him for a long moment, his heart in his throat and his breath caught and Peter forces a smile that doesn't meet his eyes. "I--I think it's time to go home, Tony," he says, softly and Tony--

Tony nods and starts packing with numb fingers and sightless eyes. 

~*~ 

They don't talk much, while they pack. Peter pauses to give the staff a few instructions, windswept and authoritative, comfortable in his skin the way he hadn't been the first time they came on a cruise like this. 

Tony wonders, a little bit panicked, if this will be the last time. 

Then the quinnjet ramp is lowering and Sam Wilson stands there, his expression a cross between concerned and amused, and Tony is following Peter up the ramp. 

They talk--him and Peter, Sam and Bucky. He couldn't for the life of him, later, say what the fuck they talked about, but he knows they did. 

All he really knows is that they are going home, and Peter is sitting next to him, and feels a million miles away. 

~*~

All he  _ really _ knows is that they are going home and Peter is sitting next to him and reaching for him, twisting their fingers together as his head tips to lean against Tony's and he murmurs, "You are so stupid, sometimes, Stark." 

~*~

When the quinnjet lands, he's not even surprised to see the familiar lakehouse. Gerald is standing by the fence, chewing lazily at his straw, and the dock has a small body on it that he recognizes immediately as Morgan. 

Peter doesn't even say goodbye, he just bolts off the jet and down the ramp, racing across the yard to scoop Morgan into his arms while Tony watches. 

"You should go," Bucky murmurs, standing next to him. He takes the bags Tony is holding uselessly and smiles, a soft thing that's almost pitying. "We'll get this. Go on. The nugget missed you." 

He goes, because there's no reason not to, and because everything in him  _ aches _ , suddenly, to be with his little girl and his husband, his  _ family _ . 

~*~ 

Morgan chatters until the sun goes down, listening wide-eyed while Peter rambles about Amsterdam and Russia, about Thailand and the pandas in China. 

"I can't wait to go," she says with a sigh and Peter points at her, a dramatic finger that makes her roll her eyes. 

She's thirteen now, and as sassy as Tony'd ever been. "Not til you're legal, little miss. I'll take you when you can actually enjoy it." 

"Dad'll take me," she says, and Tony smirks, because Morgan's first trip to Europe has been much debated over the years. 

"Sure, Morguna. As soon as you graduated with your PhD." 

She makes a wordless aggravated noise and Peter--Peter grins at him, sunshine bright and unreasonably happy, and it makes Tony's heart tumble over in his chest. 

"You're gonna spend the next week in the lab, aren't you?" Morgan says, a little bit grumpy and Peter shrugs, grinning around his wine. "I'm gonna go stay with May and Mom, if you're gonna both recluse for weeks." 

"Three days," Peter says. 

She snorts again, but she doesn't argue, and she wanders away to bed, not long after. 

Peter watches her go, and then his gaze, warm and happy settles on Tony. 

"Wanna go to the lab?" 

~*~ 

They lose track of time. 

They  _ always _ lose track of time, in the lab, and maybe it's a bad idea, maybe it's running away from a conversation he knows needs to happen, but he also is in his lab and DUM-E and U and Butterfingers are chaotic and happy around him and Peter is laughing, and then they're  _ working _ , sliding in and around each other, ignoring each other until Peter mumbles half a problem and Tony comes back with the solution and Tony passes a equation to Peter who tweaks it and sends it wordlessly back, an easy give and take and familiarity that makes him forget that they were so unhappy, that he was worried in the first place. 

They lose track of time, but he's dimly aware that Morgan appears with food and then returns to kiss them both goodbye and Peter stops working long enough to hug her, a bone crushing thing, before Tony walks her to where Happy is waiting. 

"You don't have to go, bug," he says because she doesn't, because he wants her there, always. 

"I'll be back on Saturday," she says, cheerfully. "Try not to die of dehydration before then, k?" 

He kisses her hair and says, softly, "No promises, bug." 

~*~ 

"Tony," Peter says. 

It's three am and his eyes are gritty and his fingers are trembling, and he's so tired he can barely stand, is only standing because Peter insisted that they eat before they went to bed. The sandwiches are almost gone, and FRIDAY refuses to make them more coffee--apparently the thirty-six hour mark without sleep meant some protocol Morgan wrote kicked them out of the lab and shut down the coffee maker. 

He'd be more annoyed if he was more awake or a little less proud. 

Peter is watching him, patient, a smile curling his lips, familiar and beautiful and happy. 

"You weren't happy," he says, because he can't keep it in, because he's tired, because it's  _ true _ .

Peter's expression creases, sad and pained and he sighs, pulls himself onto the counter and curls his ankles around Tony's back to pull him close. 

"Babe. We'd been traveling for like. A month. I kept waiting for a lab, so we could--work or build, or just get the thoughts to calm down? And you kept taking us everywhere but  _ home _ ." 

Tony blinks and Peter shakes his head, a smile soft on his lips. "I love it, that you want to give me the world, Tony. But the world I  _ want _ ? It's right here. It's you and Morgan and our lab, and sandwiches in the middle of the night while you curse at FRIDAY. I don't need the rest of the world--I guess I just missed...this." 

Tony blinks at him. 

"That is really fuckin' sappy, Parker," he finally says, and Peter barks a laugh. Dips down to kiss him, and he tastes like roast beef and mustard and stale coffee and home. 

~*~

They don't have sex. They stumble to bed, and Peter groans, a noise Tony almost echoes, when they curl in  _ their _ bed, and Peter snuggles into his arm, and they fall asleep wrapped up in each other, under the familiar stars and the sounds of the lake and the trees, and he sleeps, mind quiet and heart full, knowing that tomorrow Peter would laugh and burn pancakes and swim with Morgan, and kiss him, sticky sweet and careless, and happy. 

He fell asleep, happier than he ever dared dream.

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
